Elon Musk shows the assembled Starship test rocket – TechCrunch

After weeks of ridiculed renderings and production photos, Elon Musk finally showed the finished Starship test rocket last night.

As you can see well, the Starship test rocket has a stainless steel skin that some people scratched their heads. Although steel is fairly durable, it weighs more than other materials used in rockets, such as carbon fiber, aluminum, and titanium. Musk argues that the resistance of stainless steel to extreme temperatures, especially heat, is better suited for this type of rocket.

The spaceship rocket, formerly known as BFR, is an integral part of the rocket's SpaceX road map. It is supposed to take the missiles of Falcon and Falcon Heavy as the primary carrier vehicle, which means a lot of re-entry (which means a lot of heat).

This test model is currently at the launch site of Boca Chica, Texas, for suborbital VTOL testing scheduled for March. The orbital version will be larger, with thicker skins and a smoothly curved nose section, which will appear in the books for 2020.